Watching out for the little guy by keeping an eye on government and business

09/20/2012

National health care chain HCA will turn its head and cough
after agreeing to pay $16.5 million to settle
claims it broke the law by
enticed doctors to refer patients to a hospital.

The for-profit corporation was also accused of violating the False Claims
Act, which involves cases of fraud against federal health care programs. A whistleblower who tattled on HCA will get 18.5 percent of
the settlement, or about $3.1 million.

HCA has a large presence in North Texas with 10
hospitals, a Children’s Hospital, a Psychiatric Hospital, 12 ambulatory surgery
centers, 13 Imaging Centers, an Oncology
Center and a Freestanding
Emergency Room in Dallas Fort Worth and the surrounding areas.

In 2007, HCA, through subsidiaries in Tennessee, entered into financial dealings with
a physician group and induced patient referrals by slipping doctors money through lease agreements.

Improper business deals between hospitals and physicians
jeopardize both patient care and federal program dollars,” said Daniel R.
Levinson, Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services. “Our
investigators continue to work shoulder to shoulder with other law enforcement
authorities to stop schemes that imperil scarce health care resources.”

HCA owns and operates approximately 163 hospitals and
approximately 109 freestanding surgery centers in 20 states and London, England.
Overall company revenues in 2011 were $32.5 billion, up 6 percent from 2010.

09/18/2012

Warning: This posting is not intended for children younger
than 3, most of whom don’t read, but still.

A study says that TV programs with violence — this includes virtually every program on television — and even cartoons with violence may be OK for
older kids, but the younger crowd gets a bit bothered by them, according to the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In fact, 3 to 5 year old children may not have a good night’s
sleep
especially when watching something disturbing, such as America’s Funniest
Home Videos. (See photo, right)

“We
really see significant improvements in sleep and that included things like
decreased night wakings and nightmares, having an easier time falling asleep at
night, being less cranky in the morning and just less tired during the day,”
Garrison said.

09/14/2012

Can’t blame the TSA for this one: Sometime after a plane's liftoff from Baltimore-Washington International Airport, a former Texas priest reportedly engaged in a takeoff of his own.

Daniel Michael Drinan, 63, who now lives in Reno, Nev., was arrested for sexually touching himself on an aircraft in full view of other passengers, according to the FBI and other federal authorities. He was previously accused of inappropriate behavior with a child in the Catholic Diocese of Austin.

Drinan was on a flight to Denver when he connected to the aircraft’s WiFi and began viewing pornography, according to an affidavit filed with a criminal complaint. A woman seated next to Drinan saw him touching himself, gave up hope he would stop, and alerted flight attendants, the FBI said.

A male flight attendant reportedly asked Drinan to “put his pants back together.”

“At the time the male flight attendant talked with Drinan the defendant’s genitalia was totally exposed,” a press release said. Drinan was taken into custody Saturday night at Denver International Airport for lewd, indecent, or obscene acts in public aboard an aircraft.

In 2002, Drinan was accused of what the Austin diocese called “inappropriate behavior with a child.” BishopAccountability.org, which describes itself as a database of publicly accused U.S. priests, says Drinan was charged with misdemeanor assault not involving sexual contact or injuries to a child. He paid a fine over the matter, the site says.

If convicted of crimes aboard an aircraft, he faces not more than 90 days in jail and up to a $250,000 fine, according to the FBI.

09/13/2012

You can’t argue that Texas attracts medical professionals -- not that Melanie French Morrison, RN, had much of a choice.

Morrison, a nurse who used to work in Salina, Kan.,
had a drug addiction. She got a bus pass to Fort Worth from the Department of Justice following her convictions for tampering with a consumer product and adulterating drugs while caring for patients. She’s spending 36 months behind bars at Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth.

Morrison worked at a nursing facility, where she used her keys
to open the narcotics cabinet, siphon off morphine from vials using a syringe and
refill them with sodium chloride (AKA normal saline).

A federal court referred to her switcheroo as “reckless disregard,”
since it can injure or kill someone. Sodium chloride
can be dangerous,
particularly to patients who suffer from congestive heart
failure or kidney problems.

This month, Morrison was excluded from participating in federal health care
programs. That means she won't be getting taxpayer money any more. Uh, except for housing, feeding and clothing her.

09/11/2012

Two more ATF special agents troubled by Operation Fast and
Furious – one who watched supervisors
ignore fears an officer would slain by the weapons they weren’t allowed to seize – have settled claims they were retaliated against.

Indeed, F&F was halted after a U.S. border
agent was later killed by a gun buyer the ATF could have arrested, but was prevented from doing so.

Casa testified before congress that on many occassions
surveillance teams followed gun buyers to the Phoenix area, watched them buy “devastating
weapons” including AK-47 style weapons, .50 caliber rifles and pistols.

“On many of those occasions,
the surveillance team would then follow the straw purchasers either to a
residence, a public location, or until the surveillance team was spotted by the
straw purchasers,” Casa told Congress. “But the end result was always the same
– the surveillance was terminated ... without interdicting or seizing the
firearms.”

Casa said he and other agents warned superiors of something
going wrong, but were ignored. On at least a
couple of occasions, Casa said he witnessed a special agent ask supervisors if
they were prepared to attend the funeral of slain agent or officer killed with
one of the purchased firearms.

“Neither one answered or even seemed concerned by the
question posed to them,” Casa testified.

The mediation follows the resolution last month of retaliation
claims by ATF whistleblower Peter Forcelli.

This is either genius, or a terrible, terrible mistake. What looks to be an advertisement for a clinical trial on a San Antonio radio station's website asks for people, at least 18 years old, to try out.

08/27/2012

It’s comforting to know that at least one state employee
will probably be OK when she retires.

Ann S. Bishop, executive director of the Employees
Retirement System makes $312,000 (plus a bonus), according to a new report of
top state officials’ salaries by the State Auditor’s Office.

Bishop should be good since she’s a “veteran of state
government” who served as deputy Comptroller of Public Accounts and the first
executive director of the Department of Information Resources.

To be clear, we’re not knocking Bishop, who has a big job
managing a $23 billion investment portfolio and manages the Texas Employees
Group Benefits Program, which provides healthcare coverage to more than
500,000 state and higher education employees, retirees and their families.

But the auditor’s report appears to preemptively rationalize
the top salaries of state government employees, noting “it is in the State’s best interest to ensure equitable pay for executive
officer positions to help recruit and retain qualified executive officers
capable of effectively and efficiently managing state agencies.”

Of course, Gov. Rick Perry some state officials managed to
draw an annual salary, say $133,000, while also collecting retirement of, uh, oh call it another $92,376.

The audit recommends upping the pay among similar executive
officer positions at state agencies. And it does point out some rather strange pay disparities,
such as the four executive officers and another four management positions that earned
higher salaries than the Health and Human Services Commission’s executive
commissioner.

Or that the Department of Public Safety’s executive officer is
not among the 30 top management salaries, despite managing an agency protecting
Texans and overseeing a $1.5 billion budget.

Still, this is taxpayer money. So how much do, say, the top
26 people (two tied) get paid?

Here’s the list. We threw in a little comparison based on Texas’ 2010 median income
of one earner: $38,801.

A little background: Mihailovich, Sr. was convicted on
federal wire fraud charges, spent 27 months
inside and, while on a three-year
supervised release, defrauded about 93 people out of than $30 million to open
managed trading accounts, according to the government. Mihailovich, Jr., at the
time of Growth Capital’s initial registration, forgot, as we all do from time
to time, that dad was part of the business, the controlling principal and an ex-con.

It's like Father's Day; you just forget sometimes.

It’s still unclear whether Sr. and Jr. will face criminal
charges. Federal court records do not show any
criminal filings against them.

No doubt, though, they’re already writing the checks a
federal court ordered Mihailovich Sr. and company to pay $3,475,112 in
restitution, $389,006 in ill-gotten gains and a $5.4 million fine.

A Texas Burger King is being accused of skirting the law, which, as you will see, is a very bad pun.

A Christian woman's claim of religious discrimination based on her beliefs about clothing has brought the wrath of a somewhat higher power — the
federal government — to the home of the Whopper.

The woman adheres to an interpretation of scripture about wearing clothing that is “befitting of specific gender,” the EEOC said. (Rumors have circulated for years that no BK uniform befits either gender.)

A Grand Prairie, Texas, Burger King is accused of discriminating against the Pentecostal cashier, who
was fired after she wore a skirt to work instead of pants,
the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in a lawsuit filed
Wednesday. But be honest, would you buy a CROISSAN'WICH from a woman dressed like this anonymous person (pictured right)?

The woman told the company about her religious beliefs
during her job interview and was told she could wear a skirt, the EEOC said. Then,
at orientation, she was informed her apparel was inappropriate and was sent
home.

Such conduct would violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which
bars religious discrimination in the workplace, the feds contend. The EEOC is seeking back pay
and damages for the woman.

The Burger King is owned by Fries Restaurant Management,
LLC, which operates at least 10 BKs in Texas,
according to Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts data. A person reached at the company could not comment on the
case. No one else called back.

This brings us to the Quote of the Week: Regional Attorney Robert A. Canino of the EEOC’s Dallas
District Office said the nation apparently hasn’t figured out religious
liberties if there's a problem “posed by letting
an employee ‘hold the pickles’ and ‘hold the lettuce’ while wearing a skirt.”

Side note 1: If the feds really want their pound of flesh, they should join the 11 million people who each day visit Burger Kings globally. Here's how that works out if people just bought Whoppers without cheese and no fries or drinks:

08/16/2012

After billions of dollars in government bailouts of banks, automakers,and Fannie and Freddie here comes another one: The Beef Bailout.

With so many folks getting federal hand-out love, perhaps it was only inevitable that the livestock industry would be next, even though it’s already received $3.7 billion in subsidies from 1995 to 2011, according to the Environmental Working Group.

The rationale: A bad drought has hit livestock folks hard. President Barack Obama directed the military and USDA to spend some more money, including $170 million for pork, chicken, lamb and catfish. The money would help farmers and ranchers to sell more and save taxpayer cash on food the government would purchase anyway, the White House said.

Critics, aren't happy, saying Obama isn't doing enough to make it rain. Obama's meat buy, on the other hand, will cost more than the individual GDPs of 11 of the world's countries, according to the CIA World Factbook.

The president has also directed the military to explore accelerating meat purchases, which it would freeze it for future use.

EXLUSIVE: Watchdog has learned the military gets Spam. From July 2011 to June, the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support purchased 701 cases of Spam for $31,242. No word on whether Hormel Foods will also cash in on the federal aid.

(Will this cause blowback against the military? It's already had to deal with "emission prohibitons" (see link) for soldiers in Afghanistan.)

Obama noted that the meat buy won't solve the problem.

"We can't make it rain," he said.

Oh, but can’t he?

In a press statement, Speaker of the House John Boehner, said Obama should take steps to pass legislation to help with the drought.

And that brings us to our quote of the month: “...The president continues to blame anyone and everyone for the drought but himself,” Boehner said.